[imagesource: 123RF / beercrafter]

Happy Friday, everybody.

As we prepare to head into the weekend with one eye on the load shedding schedule, there’s a faint glimmer of good news.

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan says load shedding should ease over the coming days and our power supply will continue to improve over the medium term.

That’s due to new investments bolstering generation, apparently.

Gordhan spoke with Bloomberg:

“We will have load shedding for a while in South Africa,” Gordhan said on Thursday in an interview on Bloomberg TV. But “not of the order that we’ve seen in the recent past,” he said…

South Africa should have built additional capacity almost two decades ago and now needs “massive investment” in energy infrastructure, according to Gordhan, who oversees Eskom. He expects a government initiative to buy more power from private producers of renewable energy to stabilised the energy supply over the longer term, and said there remains a “huge appetite” to invest despite delays to the program.

There’s certainly a huge appetite from everyday South Africans to enjoy having power for more than half of the day.

You may have seen this meme before. I’d like to repurpose it:

Image: Reddit / u/emotionless_3gp

Gordhan says that Eskom’s management team has “done the best they can”. You can’t undo decades of criminal neglect due to unchecked corruption and pilfering, but public patience has really worn thin at this stage.

May I suggest we redirect some of that anger away from the current Eskom management team and towards the governing party at the polls?

On the off chance, you have a spare car battery lying around, I’ve found a few simple household hacks for you.

Don’t you just hate it when load shedding ruins your morning cup of coffee or evening tea? Fear not:

You might think I’m taking the piss but this is a real product for sale on Takealot – see here.

I also found this:

Yes – this too, is real.

Nothing sums up South Africa in 2022 better than having to ask your neighbour to jumpstart your kettle and iron.

[source:bloomberg]